Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Two friends can ‘ride on’ thanks to the generosity of the one

Cathe Cheesebrow and Janet Sarver met and became friends doing endurance riding with the American Endurance Ride Conference.

They grew closer in 2013, when both were competing in the same Upper Midwest Endurance and Competitive Rides Association (UMECA) category: rookie endurance.

Endurance riding involves spending hours on horseback, and the friends ended up spending that time riding together.

“We’re not riders that have to go for the first place finish...we just enjoy the ride,” Sarver said. “We were kind of jockeying each other for points, and so at rides we were together... we just started taking turns (crossing the finish line). People would come up and they would say, ‘Why are you riding with her, aren’t you competing for rookie of the year?”

Cheesebrow, 57, a River Falls resident since 2001, was asked the same question, and gave this reply, “because we have fun together.”

Today these close friends don’t just share a love of horses or endurance riding -- they share something more intimate -- a kidney.

One year ago, on Nov. 12, 2014, Sarver, of Wyoming, Minn., donated her kidney to Cheesebrow who had been struggling with kidney failure for years.

Cheesebrow, diagnosed years before with IGA nephropathy -- a common type of kidney failure caused by a virus -- learned from her nephrologist in spring 2014 that she would need a kidney transplant...